page_title: T-80
section_title: Soviet Union
hierarchical_section_title: T-80 / Service history / Soviet Union
caption_attribution_description: English: T-80UD tanks in the 1991 coup attempt. Location: Northern ramp of Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge (not exactly Red Square, some 200 meters south from its formal southern edge, with Constantine-and-Helena tower in sight) Русский: Танки во время переворота 1991 года. Место съёмки: северный подход Большого Москворецкого моста, рядом с Васильевским спуском (в кадре Константино-Еленинская башня Кремля Camera location55°&#160;45′&#160;04.41″&#160;N, 37°&#160;37′&#160;28.21″&#160;E&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth
context_page_description: The T-80 is a third-generation main battle tank designed and manufactured in the Soviet Union. When it entered service in 1976, it was the second MBT in the world to be equipped with a gas turbine engine after the Swedish Strv 103 and the first to use it as a primary propulsion engine. The T-80U was last produced in a factory in Omsk, Russia, while the T-80UD and further-developed T-84 continue to be produced in Ukraine. The T-80 and its variants are in service in Belarus, Cyprus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, and Ukraine. The chief designer of the T-80 was the Soviet engineer Nikolay Popov.
context_section_description: In 1985 there were 1,900 T-80 MBTs overall. According to data publicized in Russia, 2,256 T-80 MBTs (up to the T-80BV model, as T-80Us were never deployed in Europe) were stationed in East Germany between 1986 and 1987. NATO realized that new Soviet tanks could reach the Atlantic within two weeks and because of that started to develop counter methods that could stop them. This led to a sudden increase in development of anti-tank weapons including attack helicopters. In 1991 when the Soviet Union was breaking up, the Soviet Army operated 4,839 T-80 MBTs in several different models.
  T-80 MBTs were never used in the way in which they were intended (large-scale conventional war in Europe). They were deployed during the political and economical changes in Russia in the 1990s. In August 1991 communists and allied military commanders tried to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev and regain control over the unstable Soviet Union. T-80UD tanks of the Russian 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division drove onto the streets of Moscow but the Soviet coup attempt failed when the tank crews refused to attack the audience or the parliament.
caption: Two T-80UD MBTs on the Red Square in Moscow during the failed Coup d'état attempt, August 1991
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